Arkham City.... Sexist?

[Savagezion]

I know this is the internet and all, but could you at least TRY and read some of the articles of the opposing viewpoint?

So far, I'm yet to see a single well thought out argument that this game DOESN'T pull some crap, and all I'm seeing in defence of it is the argument equivalent of people shrugging their shoulders and just turning around and walking away.

First off, if you are not familiar with Batman's lore, then fighting this battle is futile because anyone who bitches about comics but doesn't read them is the same thing as someone bitching about a game they haven't played. Everything being bitched about here is superficial crap. The entire argument against this game is formed on a glance at the source material and then disregards it. I bet over half of the people bitching about sexism couldn't tell me Catwoman's real name without googling it first.

I will forego a lot of topics of feminists rage unless they are out to destroy something great. This game shows you the beauty that is Catwoman, the character. See, I personally think DC fell ass backwards into something with Catwoman and they will only half admit it even, but there is a chance they did it intentionally. They sure as hell embraced it well and have always followed suit. That is, when you see Catwoman, don't look at her merely as a chick running around in leather being all hyper-sexualized. She is that if you only look at the shallow end of it - but she does go much deeper. She works as a wonderful metaphor for Bruce Wayne's twisted ass allure to his alter ego. Bruce Wayne is one seriously fucked up individual when you look at him. That man's TRUE alter ego is Bruce Wayne, not Batman. Superman actually IS Clark/Kal-El and Superman is something he does. Bruce is so obsessed with his alter ego, he has identity issues. He is seduced by his own cape and symbol and his vision of justice.
Catwoman and Batman's chemistry is so good because of this. She is a twisted ass chick right along side of him. Her parallels with Batman is not the only good things about her character but it is why it is important to have her show a strong sexual identity when placed near Batman.

Sometimes hyper-sexualization can be validated and not be offensive. Hell, sometimes it can even be the best possible way to get a point across. Not only for story-telling purposes but in real social situations, which story telling is based on. The reason people dismiss the argument so much is because there is nothing here to address. The entire argument against the game is fabricated. In order to agree you have to completely disregard the source material, be against semi-realistic dialogue expressing contempt for someone, assume it is possible but not likely a woman would wear form hugging attire.

 

[Spritzey]

The whole video game industry is sexist just for the way it portrays characters,

...Really?

Ok fine show me where Insomniac games is sexist. Or the people who make Burnout.

Ok, I'm slightly generalising, but the portrayal of characters remains overly stereotypical in terms of sex for a large majority of games. Also, pretty sure cars are genderless.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

Two things, and I'm not trying to be rude here:

1. What would you like them to call her when she's kicking their ass? I would call the situation in that picture quite accurate.

2. Catwoman was always sexualized, and look at Batman. Tell me all those muscle aren't there for fan service to the ladies.

2. She at least had her zipper up most times, and she had an A-cup at one point. And no, Batman being beefy isn't there for the women, since plenty of women don't like ultramuscled man. It's male fantasy fulfilment, guys want to be toned like Batman so don't even dream of pulling that card.

 

[cobra_ky]

Dialogue in this case referring to all the voice acting in the game. I get the sense that we're not really speaking the same language here.

I'm not going to address the obvious red herring here. My argument is that the writers were negligent in this one regarding the female characters, and that constitutes unintentional sexism. I never made any claims about misogyny.

But it doesn't constitute sexism. All it constitutes is lazy writing. The only insult hurled towards batman is ***** and freak and the only insult hurled towards Catwoman is *****. This isn't lazy writing that led to unintentional sexism, this is just lazy writing.

That's certainly possible. Not having played the whole game through I won't argue with that. The repetitive "*****" lines are certainly more conspicuous though.

Now hold on a second. During this entire discussion your entire argument boiled down to "X insult is directed towards a woman, therefore it's sexist". The writing might be bad, but it's not sexist. Get over it.

Ok. Looking back, there's actually two different things we're arguing about here.

Initially i took exception to your assertion that calling a woman a ***** was not sexist. any insult directed at a woman based on her gender is sexist. The thugs calling Catwoman a ***** are misogynists.

And I'm fine with that. There's nothing wrong with writing misogynist characters into your video game. The problem have is that they were written poorly, their dialogue is hackneyed.

I don't think you understand exactly what sexism is. And you're right, Batman does get a wider variety of insults ranging from ***** and freak to... well that's about it actually. In order for the writing to be inherently sexist it needs to "involves hatred of, or prejudice towards a gender as a whole or the blind application of gender stereotypes" for non-artistic reasons. I fail to see how the writing in Arkham City does this.

Not according to my dictionary. Out of curiosity, what would you call an unconscious bias towards one gender or the other?

Oh sure, that's a representative sample of society as whole.

But random dictionary definitions do? Or rather the people behind that definition? It couldn't be that the meaning of the word changed or that it's never used with the original meaning, right? That has never happened before. The meaning of a word never changes.

Dictionaries exist for the sole purpose of documenting the meaning of words and they are frequently revised to reflect changes in usage.

The meaning of words change, but that change is always gradual. There are still many, many people who recognize that the word "*****" still predominantly refers to women. You can check urbandictionary if you don't believe me.

So we can agree that when it came to writing insults for the female characters, the writers got lazy?

No, we can agree that the writing was poorly executed as a whole. There's nothing inherently sexist about the usage of the word ***** just like there's nothing inherently sexist about the usage of the word "dick" or "bastard".

Fair enough.

snip

I give you a challenge Mr. The Writers are lazy, guy.

Come up with 5 insults to Catwoman that have the same punch as 'You cut me, you *****!', carry the same tone of the piece, but can get by a T-rating.

Oh and one more thing?

They can't suck. If they sound camp, or 60s Batmanish, or like something that'd end up in a screen shot describing the Joker's boner... they'll be rejected swiftly.

Let's see some non-lazy writing here.

What you're asking is completely subjective and i'm a single amateur instead of a team of professional writers. But i'll give it a shot:

"You cut me, you skank!", "I'm gonna whip your ass!", "I'll tear you apart!", "C'mere, kitty!" (said in a threatening tone. i don't think that's too clever) "I'll snap you like a twig." "Screw you!"

 

[Cain_Zeros]

They're criminals. Not exactly the classiest lot. The fact that you found three articles that missed that, and agreed with them, is disappointing.

 

[Sordak]

NERD BAITING alter!

stop reading Kotaku!

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

First point- So suddenly it's not okay for anyone else to call her a *****? Sorry, I don't buy that. She's an anti-hero who steals high end stuff, and she was originally a bad guy, but for the sake of the argument I will stick to this game. I would imagine any good guy would call her a ***** since she does questionable things. Kicking a bunch of guys asses and then stealing something, yeah, I'd call her a ***** too if I were Batman.

The thing is that "*****" is a very sexist slur. You might, but I wouldn't, and I'd hope that batman was better then that.

What's the point of making a "liberated" woman if you're not gonna take a potshot at sexism, and instead are gonna utterly normalize it?

Second point- Historically is the keyword there, but it's not the case anymore. Yeah it's idealized for guys, but some women can like how Batman looks in the game. I will say judging by the way this game has been designed, it was going towards a comic book feel, look at the Joker and Harley Quinn, I would argue comic book style. If this was Gears of War, I would have a slightly different opinion, but this is a game based on a comic book, people just want to play as Batman.

And? The game's still made primarily for guys. The fact that girls like the look doesn't mean that the decisions was made because of them, it's a fringe benefit.

Very sexist? I'm sorry, but no. I would call other things sexist, and '*****' wouldn't be one of them. And I'm normalizing it since I don't think this is a big deal. There are other things to get pissed off about in the realm of sexism, and this isn't one of them. I'm sorry, but I don't see it here. The people that do say it in the game are criminals, the scum of the earth, get over it.

This game is primarily for guys? Funny, I could've sworn this game is for fans of Batman.

 

[DracoSuave]

What you're asking is completely subjective and i'm a single amateur instead of a team of professional writers. But i'll give it a shot:

"You cut me, you skank!", "I'm gonna whip your ass!", "I'll tear you apart!", "C'mere, kitty!" (said in a threatening tone. i don't think that's too clever) "I'll snap you like a twig." "Screw you!"

Awesome. Now listen to this in game footage [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46d60h14AEo] and count how many times you hear the word '*****.'

PS: This too. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHE_gTtHwzY&feature=related]

There is nothing worse than misrepresentation of an artistic form to make a political statement that is not applicable to that artistic form.

It's one thing to discuss thugs constantly calling Catwoman a *****... but when I can go through two gameplay videos of her fighting, and NOT HEAR THE WORD ONCE...

....yeah, someone's lying to make a point.

PPS: This clip has the word twice. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNyWoazEeZQ&feature=related] but it's hardly the 'bitchfest' it's made out to be.

 

[AdumbroDeus]

It does? Well the more you know.

You see I don't much care for the etymology of words, the meaning of a word isn't listed in the dictionary definition of a word, then I couldn't care less what you think a word means.

***** is generally used as the blankest of insults, it's similar to asshole or dickhead, or words of that nature, when I use it, and when most people use it they simply need any kind of insult and this is an easy one, they don't imply anything by using it other than dislike of the person they are using it against.

The thing is, it's used against women who display power, so the term still carries it's proper meaning to a very significant degree, just subconsciously. By saying it to a women who shows significant agency, people do maintain the taboo against woman with agency and power, even if they don't want to.

In essence, it's more a subconscious then conscious, which is why substituting it for more generic insults (when deserved) instead of treating it like women with power itself is wrong goes a long way towards normalizing it.

Similarly to the way the word "whore" makes being sexually liberated an insult.

No, they are in fact not similar "whore" implies something much more specific about a woman's behavior than ***** does.

And Really? I'm really gonna have to explain to you why being promiscuous is generally perceived as a negative trait in women?

Yeah it's not fair or right, but you really don't understand why it is?

Of course I understand why it's like that, but lack of sexual empowerment is the exact same type of situation and just as significant a barrier to women.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Two things, and I'm not trying to be rude here:

1. What would you like them to call her when she's kicking their ass? I would call the situation in that picture quite accurate.

2. Catwoman was always sexualized, and look at Batman. Tell me all those muscle aren't there for fan service to the ladies.

2. She at least had her zipper up most times, and she had an A-cup at one point. And no, Batman being beefy isn't there for the women, since plenty of women don't like ultramuscled man. It's male fantasy fulfilment, guys want to be toned like Batman so don't even dream of pulling that card.

I would argue the people designing Batman had that in mind as well, and since this is based on a comic book, I'm not gonna argue design logic anymore. I'm sorry, but I'm just tired of arguing over this. It's my opinion, and let's just leave it at that, okay?

 

[Treblaine]

1. It's a prison populated by uncouth males who likely don't refer to women in favorable terms, especially when she is kicking their assed.
2. That's Catwoman's thing. She doesn't flirt and act sexy all the time because they can't write her any better, but because that's who she is. A thief who uses her sexuality to toy with the mostly male character pool.
3. People are too sensitive.

Well, no, they're not.

It's a prison populated by uncouth males who, apparently, don't use any racist terms when discussing each other. Why does sexism come into it, all of a sudden? Why not racism? if we're going to make them seem like typical "uncouth males" then why is it that the only time any particular discrimination rears it's ugly head is when they're referring to Catwoman?

Because it is a T-for-teen rated game, as prescribed by the DC licence.

"*****" is far less inflammatory term than even the mildest racial taunts like "******".

(PS: I hope you can't making a "two wrongs make a right" argument)

 

[Arrogancy]

I'd like to say that this entire discussion is utterly and completely pointless and stupid because anyone with any amount of reason and sense would be able to quickly see that Arkham City isn't sexist, especially on the flimsy basis of using one word against one character, but I feel that I'd be doing nothing but repeating what everyone else has already said. Instead I'll just add in a few other thoughts that connect to the overall topic. While Catwoman is a very sexualized character she also presents a fairly progressive view of women in media. She's a strong, daring, and cunning woman who is quite the match for the Dark Knight, no easy feat. Catwoman's sex appeal arises from her role in the DC universe as Batman's love interest and from the fact that society just likes beautiful people more. Unlike some other characters from other types of media I could name who are little more than living sex-dolls, Catwoman doesn't fit into that category. Selina Kyle is a well-rounded character who can kick some serious ass.

 

[nukethetuna]

It's true, if you're concerned about the widespread use of the world "*****" in society to the point that it is used to insult a woman of questionable standards in a video game, you should first start your crusade against said video game, rather than the society which allowed such writing to be viewed as "realistic".
No but seriously, all I got out of this was "INTERNET WHITE KNIGHT, DEFENDING WOMEN EVERYWHERE FROM ARKHAM CITY'S SEXISM!".
Honestly, I'd be more offended that the developers couldn't come up with more varied insults than the fact that "*****" is a derogatory word for women.

 

[AdumbroDeus]

It does? Well the more you know.

You see I don't much care for the etymology of words, the meaning of a word isn't listed in the dictionary definition of a word, then I couldn't care less what you think a word means.

***** is generally used as the blankest of insults, it's similar to asshole or dickhead, or words of that nature, when I use it, and when most people use it they simply need any kind of insult and this is an easy one, they don't imply anything by using it other than dislike of the person they are using it against.

The thing is, it's used against women who display power, so the term still carries it's proper meaning to a very significant degree, just subconsciously. By saying it to a women who shows significant agency, people do maintain the taboo against woman with agency and power, even if they don't want to.

In essence, it's more a subconscious then conscious, which is why substituting it for more generic insults (when deserved) instead of treating it like women with power itself is wrong goes a long way towards normalizing it.

So you're saying that a woman has to... DO something bitchy to be called a *****? Kinda like how a guy has to do something assholeish to be called an asshole?

GOOD SHOW HOLMES!

But seriously, what you're bringing up is a total non-issue, almost all insults carry some implication of agency and and action, ***** is no different from most other insults in this regard.

Of course they do, but the point is that "*****" carries the connotation in and of itself, whereas "asshole" implies a particular use of it.

And that's where the issue is, that a woman is a ***** not because she did something unkind to people, she's a ***** cause she had the gall to stick up for herself and oppose a guy.


Not to mention the implications of when "*****" is used towards a guy.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

Well, that's me not buying Arkham City then.

And our own MovieBob had something to say about it as well on his blog.

http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2011/10/will-arkham-city-be-this-years-other-m.html

 

[badgersprite]

I don't think the game is sexist at all. I think they have kind of a shitty adaptation of Catwoman, like they haven't picked up a comic with Catwoman in it for years, but I don't think that has anything to do with sexism, just the fact that they're not that familiar with the character, or wanted to make her different from the B:TAS or from the pre-New 52 Catwoman.

So, yeah, this take on Catwoman bugs the crap out of me, especially in the early part of the game, but that's just because I know the character and have followed her for so long that departing from my take on her is always going to invoke fangirl rage.

 

[Treblaine]

1. It's a prison populated by uncouth males who likely don't refer to women in favorable terms, especially when she is kicking their assed.
2. That's Catwoman's thing. She doesn't flirt and act sexy all the time because they can't write her any better, but because that's who she is. A thief who uses her sexuality to toy with the mostly male character pool.
3. People are too sensitive.

Well, no, they're not.

It's a prison populated by uncouth males who, apparently, don't use any racist terms when discussing each other. Why does sexism come into it, all of a sudden? Why not racism? if we're going to make them seem like typical "uncouth males" then why is it that the only time any particular discrimination rears it's ugly head is when they're referring to Catwoman?

Because it is a T-for-teen rated game, as prescribed by the DC licence.

"*****" is far less inflammatory term than even the mildest racial taunts like "******".

(PS: I hope you can't making a "two wrongs make a right" argument)

Cheers for addressing a singular and slightly unrelated part of my argument, but I guess it woulda been dumb for me to put it there had I not been prepared to deliver a defence. Well, here's a simple attempt:

It isn't less inflammatory. you're still talking about an insult that is usually only levelled against a singular group, in this case women, because it carries a wide variety of implications.

Now, why is insulting women in general by levelling one derogatory epithet at one of them less inflammatory than insulting black people in general by levelling a similarly derogitory epithet at them? i'd say that it isn't, not in the slightest.

In short, I'm not can't making a "two wrongs make a right" argument, although I'm not entirely sure where you got that idea so there still might be something in my post that doesn't match up, if so then I'm not aware of it so just point it out please.

EDIT: WAIT! I think I get it, you think that I'm making a "two wrongs make a right" argument because it appears that I'm saying that sexism = bad but racism + sexism = OK.

That's not really what I meant - what the guy I responded to was trying to do was justify their treatment of women by saying "oh, they're SUPPOSED to be dickheads" but if they're dickheads, why is their discrimination only focused on one particular group?

In short, I feel it's inconsistent. Attempting to claim that these guys use that kind of language because they're only "mindless thugs" doesn't make sense because they don't level similar insults at members of other groups - just women.

You cannot equate a vaguely sexist term with any racial epithet.

I've never heard of a comedian having is career ruined for using the "B word"

World famous and respected comedian Michael Richards of Kramer fame DID have his career completely ruined by one incidence of using the N-word.

I don't think you have ANY idea about how much black people have suffered and continue to suffer under racism and how powerful, dirty and hate-laced the N-word is. I don't think you realise how sensitive racism is even today.

It's artistic licence in the form of self-censorship: if they didn't creatively mask the way these thugs would really speak then it would be far less likely they would be heard speak at all as it would get an M-rating (so wave bye bye to DC licence and the game's release).

And these thugs, what else do you expect them to do. expect them to use "milder" racial insults? Like "monkey" or "ape"? That's just as bad! You CANNOT have repeated use of explicit racism in a game and still expect a t-for-teen rating. ***** is no where near as sexist as almost any racial epitaph is racist.

Also, if Joker (or whoever) is running a mixed race gang (not inconceivable) then it's logical that the gang members will know to can the race-talk so they can focus on fighting batman and not getting into a race riot. In prisons that are divided along racial lines there is a lot of racism, but when they aren't divided that way they don't keep using racial slurs.

So you are right, it IS inconsistent.

But it is not wrong.

[small](Addendum: are any of the criminals in this game ever engaging in combat with an African american or ANY non-white person? No? So why would they use racial insults then? Otherwise it really would just be a case of "equally insulting" and "two wrongs make a right".
They ARE fighting female opponents, with aggression and frustration; insults are inevitable. Also, generally if a black superhero had just beat the living shit out of your confederates, it's not a good idea to call him a "******". But macho-men overestimating their dominance of women ARE very likely to resort to as mild an epithet as "*****". Hell, I caught my kid sister call her friend a *****)
[/small]